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Mardek 3 vs. Epic Battle Fantasy 3
page 6

Mardek 3 is large and deep enough to be a console game if you ask me. I’ve gotten all badges in both of these games and the quality of the story and gameplay far outweighs EBF3. Mardek is more serious, sure, but it has plenty of humour to boot; EBF3 is just lots of humour, and sacrifices the quality and depth of storyline that is possessed by Mardek 3.
However, every now and then we all have to get off our highhorses and ask ourselves whether the games did what they were designed to do – that is, deliver and delight their target audiences. Mardek is made for the fans, and focuses on deep storyline and lengthy gameplay, designed to suck you in and keep you up till 4am because you simply HAVE to know what’s coming next. EBF3 is more about a light laugh, jiggly tits, sweet chibi graphics and something you can come back to when you have a spare few minutes to progress the story bit by bit. It suits smaller portions of gameplay than Mardek, but this is not necessarily a weakness.
So, if you were to ask me, I’d definitely say Mardek, but if you look at the attributes of each game, they aim to do quite different things and to work for different people. On these grounds I’d say it’s quite difficult to determine a winner, I don’t believe that the fact Mardek took longer to make is a viable reason to call it better, you have to just look at the merits of each finished product. Both these games get full marks as far as I’m concerned, and they both achieve what they set out to do, but Mardek in my eyes is just plain better.

I have played a lot of RPGs, from the old days of Nintendo and even before, and to be honest I find Mardek to be somewhat overrated. The artwork is poor (and I’m not talking the pixel graphics, those I love, but the other art and animations are crude at best), the designs and color choices are drab and unappealing, and the level designs are nothing impressive. In fact, most maps seem to be nothing more than sets of branching paths with a chest at the end of each one (usually containing something useless) that exist solely to take you out of your way in order to throw more random battles at you. Navigating these maps quickly becomes an exercise in frustration and annoyance as the “take five steps, random battle!” process repeats ad nausem, and the game drags to a tedious crawl. The battle system itself is slow and even with quality settings all the way down lags far too much. And to top it all off, the skill system is unintuitive (really, who thought it was a good idea to penalize upgrading equipment and force the player to drag along all kinds of crap into dozens of battles just to grind out skills from it?) and forces entirely too much grinding. For a game whose battle system doesn’t shine to begin with and which supposedly doesn’t have combat as a focus, it sure as hell makes you do a lot of pointless fighting just to get the skills necessary to progress.
By contrast, EBF3 is a breeze to play and even from the lowest levels never feels frustrating or bogs down. The balance of player abilities to enemy difficulty is steady throughout, challenging enough to be fun but not frustrating. Grinding is kept to a reasonable minimum, and the skill and element systems give plenty enough variety to keep battles interesting. The variety of enemies and their design is solid as well, and really vary from level to level. The puzzles (something Mardek seemed to lack) were similarly challenging enough to be fun without being overly frustrating. In all, the game was visually appealing and fun to play, and the mechanics were very well polished. It was clearly well designed despite it’s silly premise.
Story-wise, Mardek is garnering a lot of praise simply because it has one, and EPF3 really doesn’t. However, the gameplay and visual design and execution of EBF3 are lightyears ahead of Mardek, and Mardek’s story wasn’t overly impressive. A pointless cutscene death does not depth make, and it’s been done to death by now. Aeris burned that t-shirt, and Mardek’s pale retread of the twist doesn’t even come close.
Yes, EBF3 was shallow. It was intended to be. It was also fun, well-made, and thoughtfully designed. The gameplay and visual design quality could easily support a serious RPG, and if the author ever makes one I’ll be right in line for it. Mardek, on the other hand, frustrated and annoyed me so much I quit after beating part 2 and have little desire to continue. EBF3 FTW.

> forces entirely too much grinding.
I got the impossible badge without ANY sort of grinding.
> with a chest at the end of each one (usually containing something useless)
What? What are useless?
> The puzzles (something Mardek seemed to lack)
So where’s the [PROFANITY]in’ Water Temple*??*???
> Mardek’s story wasn’t overly impressive.
Did you even read the dialogues, dreamstones and do the sidequests?
> force the player to drag along all kinds of crap into dozens of battles just to grind out skills from it?
If you know how to train skills, it wouldn’t take you more than one or two battles to master all of them.
> The battle system itself is slow and even with quality settings all the way down lags far too much.
Yes, ’cause you have a computer purchased in Cambria.

> The artwork is poor
Kidding, right? How many games on Kongregate did you play exactly?
> In fact, most maps seem to be nothing more than sets of branching paths with a chest at the end of each one
So unlike what EBF 3 did, right?
Right?
That’s not exactly how Mardek works, though.
> (usually containing something useless)
What? The only items I didn’t use were potions (but many players do), but they aren’t in chests that are hard to get.
> that exist solely to take you out of your way in order to throw more random battles at you.
So, why do you not avoid all of those and skip directly to all the bosses?
> Navigating these maps quickly becomes an exercise in frustration and annoyance as the “take five steps, random battle!” process repeats ad nausem, and the game drags to a tedious crawl.
I assume you’ve never heard of the Z button? (It cancels any battle with a blue exclamation mark.)
> The battle system itself is slow and even with quality settings all the way down lags far too much.
My PC is pretty bad, and I have no problems with it.
> really, who thought it was a good idea to penalize upgrading equipment and force the player to drag along all kinds of crap into dozens of battles just to grind out skills from it?
1. If you need to grind for skills, you’re doing it wrong. Entirely unneeded for finishing the game.
2. As said, some skills are easy to master even within a single battle. Others can simply be equipped and will progress when you continue on with the storyline.
> and forces entirely too much grinding.
Entirely unnecessary.
> EBF3
I won’t even begin picking this apart. I disagree on every single point you make for EBF 3. Reply if you want me to argue on all of them.

Interesting how my computer handles the much more graphically intensive EBF3 just fine, but drags on Mardek. It’s the same computer, same settings, so clearly one is better programmed than the other. Flash is easy to bloatware into lagsville, and it’s clear that one program fell into that trap and the other did not. EBF3 is simply coded better, undeniably so. It’s better constructed from a technical game engine standpoint. Battles in EBF3 are both more varied and complex structurally and more visually impressive, and despite those advantages run smoother and swifter on the same hardware. There’s no question which one is better programmed.
Skill grinding was tedious as hell and took forever. In particular, the resistances such as those against poison, zombification, etc progress one point per battle and you can only equip one of them at a time, two max, plus the equipment you learn them from are often limited in number and so you have to swap them around. That means you have to fight 40 battles per skill in a lot of cases, which is excessive grinding by any definition.
In many cases, these skills are learned from weapons and armor that are swiftly outdated by better equipment available more quickly than you are done learning skills from them. So either you have to stick with lesser equipment and grind the skills from them before you upgrade to the better items already available, or you end up with half-leveled skills that will never progress unless you equip the old stuff again.
I found myself both bored and frustrated frequently while playing Mardek, for the above reasons and more, for entirely too little story payoff. The balance between humor and drama was frequently handled poorly, with lightweight or silly dialogue cropping up at times when they only served to distract from the dramatic moments the game was trying to set up. I mean, come on, you lose the best friend character and the girl, only to watch the villains have a silly argument where one of them goes on about washing his nonexistant hair? So the game is basically telling us that we made major sacrifices and ended up alone in the world, to triumph over blithering idiots with a vague and nonsensical plan? It robs the entire thing of drama and creates a sense of futility. The supposedly humorous idiocy of the villains make the stakes seem trivial and render the sacrifices bitter and pointless.
The fact is, I was left wanting more by EBF3, and Mardek2 made me loathe to even play Mardek3. I got a few minutes into the third game, and ended up letting my party die. I felt relieved and glad to be done with them. Not only did I not care about the characters, they had become a burden. I was glad to be rid of them. That’s not what one would call a positive gaming experience.
You can disagree if you like, but those are my opinions and how I felt playing the game. My experiences are valid, I played Mardek wanting to enjoy it, but was disappointed at best. I didn’t enjoy the game, and that is the fault of numerous flaws including but not limited to those I have listed here.

I’m not saying you can’t feel like that, I’m thinking your arguments for disliking the game are either also in EBF 3, can be avoided or are simply false. As an example, EBF 3 also has nothing more than the main road with a few branches ending up at chests, you can avoid blue battles by pressing Z and it’s false you “need” to grind for many things.
I can give you a quick run-through for EBF 3 to show you it’s not as one-sided as it seems:
Humor: Completely ridiculous. Sex jokes are supposed to be funny?
Quests: Quests? What quests? All I hear is “get these arbitrary items for me you can buy in the shop or find during the game any way”.
Battles: Bad stuff. Why does one team gain an imbalanced advantage for having 1 speed/agility/whatever more than the other team by starting first with its _entire_ team (even if one of the enemies is supposed to be incredibly slow but strong)? Mardek did this right by setting every individual character in order. Why am I forced to kill the enemies with Matt or maybe Natt to be sure that _if_ there’s a next wave, they won’t immediately get to attack me for some reason? Bosses with billions of HP and lackeys that heal for millions of HP? Sounds like loads of fun. Killing the lackeys you say? Oh, no, about every turn he summons them back. Makes it boring and tedious. Why not make them actually challenging with less HP? That would perhaps make it “fun”.
Healing outside battle: If you give us regeneration .. just give us our full health back when we finish a battle. Reduces walking time.
Epicness: In Mardek, we find an incredible amulet on a superboss, a rare ore deep in a temple, a unique accessory in a secret chest. In EBF? We buy them in the shops, have the skills readily available for us, and there are no side paths to take at all. Everything is a straight line, and there’s very few usable items you actually have to loot.
Items: I never felt it to be fun at all to change equipment to suit my style/the enemies. I played with everything at level 1, because I simply didn’t like it at all. When I finally upgraded, I was stuck with the ones I upgraded the most, even though I later hear I needed entirely different types of equipment.
Story: Story? What story? A few pictures with one sentence of text below it doesn’t tell me anything. “Ohi we kind of poked an evil overlord and now it twisted the entire universe in some kind of state while we’re back to level 1.”
In short: You like one game more, I like another game more, and we both have our reasons. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily hate EBF 3. It simply tried to copy Mardek and failed in every aspect either on purpose or accidentally.

You do not need to grind much in MARDEK at all. Often multiple weapons have the same skills to learn, or can be learned from an accessory like a gemstone or a necklace. Also, and this is a key point, the game mechanics dictate that you can only equip skills as your action points allow. This means that you as the player should not bother learning every bloody skill in the game anyway, because yes, that is a lot of grinding. The idea is to customise your player according to your play style, and sure everyone loves variety in attacks and abilities but you should not force these skills upon yourself. A lot of people are complaining that you require 40+ skill points in a skill before you learn it without the need of a certain item, but those are often key skills that also cost a lot of AP – meaning that if you want to use the skill, even without that specific item equipped, you won’t have much AP left over to place into other skills anyway. Therefore, holding that item for a long period of time without changing it will simply correlate to the usefulness of the skill, and you will almost definitely have had your character learn it by the time you find an item with a better (and even MORE AP-heavy) skill to collect.
Anyone using grinding as an excuse to rate MARDEK down simply has missed the whole point.
And complaining about its difficulty relative to EBF3 is no reason to rate it down either, it was obviously MEANT to be harder and actually require a strategy for each enemy (and especially boss) you meet.
And the game allows you skip any battle with a blue exclamation point, by hitting Z, as people have pointed out. If you have a red exclamation point, it means you are not strong enough to shrug off the battle. This can be a bit annoying at times, but these battles are always a decent challenge and you gain enough EXP from them to be able to begin skipping similar-level battles within 4-5 battles, which is just enough to sample and appreciate the enemies in a given area, which should really be done anyway in order to be able to appreciate the game and to call this ‘forced grinding’ is simply untrue.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion but most of the complaints about MARDEK sound a lot like they haven’t really given it a chance or considered what it was trying to achieve, and this is no reason to think less of it, but rather to appreciate the alternative game mechanics it utilises as opposed to the more straightforward and conventional approach used by EBF3.

Darkruler:
Copied Mardek? That’s absolutely ridiculous. Neither Mardek or EBF invented the turn-based RPG genre, it’s existed since the 1980s. And it’s very clear to anyone with experience in the genre that EBF is an obvious homage to the Final Fantasy style of JRPG (Japanese Role Playing Game), and designed to appeal to fans of those type of games.
Two innovations that EBF has that I found excellent were the lack of random battles (everything is on the screen, you choose when and where to fight, something first seen in Crono Trigger for the SNES) and the ability to improve the equipment you own instead of constantly trading equipment back and forth at a shop and being forced to carry, get rid of, and manage a large inventory of destined-to-be useless equipment. Both minimize annoyances that have long been a peeve of RPG players, and Mardek falls into both traps in spades.
In EBF3, nothing you own is actually useless. Each has a particular set of advantages and disadvantages, and can be upgraded as you go. You can choose to pay for the supplies you need to upgrade at a shop, or you can simply collect those items as you progress, both are easy. The menu system even organizes all your stuff into what it is and how it’s used, automatically, eliminating entirely the need to organize a large inventory. It’s little things like that that demonstrate how EBF is well-designed and makes it’s experience as smooth and hassle-free as possible, a welcome contrast from the clunkiness and frustrating systems present in Mardek.
As to the concept of swapping equipment and maximizing various spells for the enemies you’re going to face, that’s a basic part of RPG strategy and a huge part of why EBF3’s battles were enjoyable. The game not only gives you plenty of clues to what you need to have to succeed, it even gives you a direct infodump available on demand to tell you directly what the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses are. The boss battles feel appropriately epic, and are challenging but fun for anyone who is a fan of the style of JRPG that EBF emulates so well.
The sidequests are just that, side quests. They’re a little bonus, like the minigames and medals, that are there for completists who like to have lots of things to do to get the most out of a game. These are, again, long-established traditions in JRPGs, and are well-executed here. You can completely ignore them if you like, but if you complete them there are some nice bonus weapons and spells you can get for some of them, and the completed checklist and medal for achievement you get for finishing them all is a nice little sense of accomplishment.
Things like this show that EBF3 is very genre-savvy and put a lot of thought and effort into making a clean, enjoyable user experience that minimizes hassles and avoids annoyances that have often cropped up in the RPG genre. Mardek, on the other hand, not only falls into those traps but often makes them worse than usual. The system is clunky at best, and fails consistently to be anything close to smooth or attractive. The fact that it annoyed me to the point where playing was a chore and I just wanted to get the game over with proves that in spades.
leomaan: If you didn’t notice, the last boss in Mardek 2 (Moric/Social Fox) has a spell that casts multiple status effects on your entire party at once, and uses zombify on anyone he’s able to kill —and with his attack he’s able to one or two hit kill most anyone in your party. The lightning spells cast by the Droma minions he summons cause stun/paralyze as well. Thus, if you don’t have resistance to zombify, blind, paralyze, and curse on your party then you will be constantly nerfed and wasting turn after turn to clear your status just to be able to attack, and since they can cast these effects multiple times they can re-infect your party faster than you can cure them. That makes grinding for resistance skills vital to completing the game, and it’s a vastly tedious process. I spent an entire night endlessly clearing Canonia of zombies, half-asleep and tapping the x button to attack just to grind up the skills necessary. It felt like work, something to get done and when it was finished I was glad to have gotten it over with. Combined with the downer ending with zero reward, it made me never want to put myself through playing another Mardek game again.
That is poor game design, period.

Funny how you praise every positive feature you find and wave away every negative issue I mention. Clearly you have different values than I do, as I think in quite the opposite way. I’ve enjoyed Mardek in every aspect over EBF 3, simple as that. I could make a lengthy post like yours, but it would not create an inherently better value. I feel we can discuss back and forth for dozens of posts, but there would be no use to it. I would like to reply to one thing, though.
> That is poor game design, period.
No. It is you misunderstanding the very core of the game. There is no need to grind. Period.

> *Originally posted by **[Moochy](/forums/3/topics/112021?page=6#posts-2511043):***
>
> From reading this thread, all I really take is that the Mardek support camp are capable of putting extensive reasons into why it’s better, and that EBF3 fans are the kind to go ‘I like it, it’s better’ and leave it at that.
That is because EBF3 is a meme-based game, and will only appeal more to meme-obsessed beings.
I find the people who like Mardek 3 much smarter than people of EBF3. (Take note that I am not calling EBF3 fans stupid. It is a matter of opinion.)

Darkruler:
No need to grind? Did you play Mardek 2 at all? How did you beat the final boss without status resistances? As I said, he casts multiple status effects on your entire party at once, and his minions can cause stun/paralyze, AND he can cast zombify on anyone who dies and Phoenix Downs are useless against it. Items only clear one effect at a time. Even Mardek’s Remove Taint spell doesn’t get all the status effects you can get nailed with, and it only works on one character at a time. Moreover, if Mardek himself is stunned or zombified, he can’t cast it. How do you propose beating Moric without those status resistances? The only way to get them is to grind for them, as I said, 40 battles per skill.
Explain this please, or concede the point.
OMFGPwned:
Or, as I explained in detail above, it could be appealing based on it’s smooth gameplay, well-designed battle system, excellent game balance and variety of enemies, attractive visual style, and adherence to the conventions of the JRPG genre of gaming. You know, that genre represented by the multimillion-selling Final Fantasy series? Memes aren’t the only thing it has going for it, by a long shot.

> *Originally posted by **[kitty\_tc\_69](/forums/3/topics/112021?page=6#posts-2563110):***
>
> Darkruler:
>
> No need to grind? Did you play Mardek 2 at all? How did you beat the final boss without status resistances? As I said, he casts multiple status effects on your entire party at once, and his minions can cause stun/paralyze, AND he can cast zombify on anyone who dies and Phoenix Downs are useless against it. Items only clear one effect at a time. Even Mardek’s Remove Taint spell doesn’t get all the status effects you can get nailed with, and it only works on one character at a time. Moreover, if Mardek himself is stunned or zombified, he can’t cast it. How do you propose beating Moric without those status resistances? The only way to get them is to grind for them, as I said, 40 battles per skill.
>
> Explain this please, or concede the point.
I actually found the last boss of Mardek 2 to be rather easy. For one thing, if you buy some remedies at a store, you will be able to cure every status effect on one character in one turn. Also, to just cure zombification/curses, use some Holy Water. Also, i found the whole resurrecting partners as zombies helpful, because it allowed me to bring my partner to full health without using any healing items besides Holy Water/Remove Taint.

> Did you play Mardek 2 at all?
Considering I have all badges up until the impossible in Mardek 3, I guess I did play them.
> How did you beat the final boss without status resistances?> How do you propose beating Moric without those status resistances?
Who said you magically have no skills/spells if you decide not to grind?
> The only way to get them is to grind for them, as I said, 40 battles per skill.
Why is doing battles “grinding”? You are apparently missing the fact that battles are part of the gameplay. You can finish quests by going from point A to point B, and thoughout the way you’ll get attacked. By equipping all reaction and passive skills, you can level them all without ever having to grind. I saw this especially in Mardek 3, where you had a massive amount of items/skills. I simply equipped my characters with random items and allowed their skills to level while I was moving from quest to quest. At bosses where you required certain skills, I of course switched equipment/skills for a moment. After that, back to levelling while moving on in the game as I was supposed to. There was no grinding involved.
> As I said, he casts multiple status effects on your entire party at once, and his minions can cause stun/paralyze, AND he can cast zombify on anyone who dies and Phoenix Downs are useless against it. Items only clear one effect at a time. Even Mardek’s Remove Taint spell doesn’t get all the status effects you can get nailed with, and it only works on one character at a time. Moreover, if Mardek himself is stunned or zombified, he can’t cast it.
If you’re really fast throughout the game and don’t do any sidequest stuff or try to find all the chests, you’ll probably still be able to beat him, provided you don’t all get killed at the same time. I believe there are one or two items granting you immunity to zombification, and perhaps one more that can be bought in Cambria. Once found, equip them on one of your characters and continue normally. It’s probable if you’re _really_ quick, you’ll get to the final boss before having mastered the immunity on any one of your characters, but I doubt it. If you mastered it on one or two of them, you’re already done for the final boss battle (as you can equip the rest with the items, also granting you the immunity). Having all characters immune to zombification does not only mean Moric does not get to steal your teammates, it also means that he will revive and fully heal any character of yours that has fallen. Isn’t _that_ an easy boss battle? As I said, just make sure you don’t all get killed at the same time.
All the points you make against Mardek are easily explained, as I mentioned in a post above. The points you make about EBF 3 are highly subjective, and I disagree with most of them.

I like EBF3 for a few reasons.
1. It’s easy to get bored with Mardek style games. You have to walk around endlessly and have to fight a bunch of monsters to getting there, even with cancel option.
2. Even if you do cancel out every single blue foe, there is a great chance that you will not be able to defeat the next boss they through at you, causing you to go back and battle random monsters.
3. There are too many things to switch. In Mardek, you have to switch between party members, items with your OWN party members, and more equipment then EBF3.
Now to answer some “disadvantages”
“Humor: Completely ridiculous. Sex jokes are supposed to be funny?”
-“I used my flapping arm for that attack!” “Stop pretending to be an enemy tree, your just a tree!”“I had a funny dream where I died”. Funny jokes right there.
“Items: I never felt it to be fun at all to change equipment to suit my style/the enemies. I played with everything at level 1, because I simply didn’t like it at all. When I finally upgraded, I was stuck with the ones I upgraded the most, even though I later hear I needed entirely different types of equipment.”
- You have to change more equipment Mardek
“Story: Story? What story? A few pictures with one sentence of text below it doesn’t tell me anything. “Ohi we kind of poked an evil overlord and now it twisted the entire universe in some kind of state while we’re back to level 1.””
-It still a storyline isn’t it?
“Healing outside battle: If you give us regeneration .. just give us our full health back when we finish a battle. Reduces walking time.”
-1. Use food. 2. Use inn. 3. Lv. Up. 4. Battle and regenerate

> -“I used my flapping arm for that attack!” “Stop pretending to be an enemy tree, your just a tree!”“I had a funny dream where I died”. Funny jokes right there.
I sincerely hope that was sarcasm, as none of those are funny for anyone of average intelligence.
> -It still a storyline isn’t it?
Hardly.

Dr Stein:
Nobody’s claiming that EBF3 is the second coming of Shakespeare. It’s barely a story at all, and merely exists to service the gameplay which is the real focus of the title. You know, kinda like “weird turtle dragon thing kidnaps princess for no apparent reason, forcing plumber to traverse bizarre obstacle course of jumping puzzles and oddly cute enemies to rescue her”. As the Bard himself might say, “the play’s the thing”. It’s focus is on being fun to play, not on telling a story.
Some of the moments in EBF3 were funnier than others, and there was plenty of bad humor in Mardek as well. In particular, the female Adventurer in M2 that spends most of the game bitching in a stereotypically feminist fashion, including demands to stop staring at her chest, only to end up with a bandit whom she brags is such a “criminal” who “treats her like dirt, like she deserves”. This was a blatant and offensive dig at feminism and women in general.
Mardek wasn’t exactly Shakespeare either.

> 1. It’s easy to get bored with Mardek style games. You have to walk around endlessly and have to fight a bunch of monsters to getting there, even with cancel option.
Getting bored is subjective. I never got bored. You don’t have to walk around endlessly, unless you’re being inefficient. The “bunch of monsters” you’re forced to fight are actually a warning that you’re equal in strength or weaker than the monsters there.
> 2. Even if you do cancel out every single blue foe, there is a great chance that you will not be able to defeat the next boss they through at you, causing you to go back and battle random monsters.
What do you mean “even if you do”? Of course you won’t be strong enough if you don’t ever fight monsters, that’s kind of ridiculous to assume you will be. I know EBF 3 gives you massive experience for beating even one monster so that they can wrap up the story really quick, but Mardek likes to actually make you fight all types of monsters in the game.
> 3. There are too many things to switch. In Mardek, you have to switch between party members, items with your OWN party members, and more equipment then EBF3.
I used the entire party throughout the entire game (except when I didn’t have those party members yet). I also only switched items if I was teaching them a skill.
I thought people would actually think being able to choose between multiple characters is fun?
> -“I used my flapping arm for that attack!” “Stop pretending to be an enemy tree, your just a tree!”“I had a funny dream where I died”. Funny jokes right there.
Jokes are supposed to make me laugh or smile. These are just stupid.
> - You have to change more equipment Mardek
Not really. In EBF 3, you are forced to have a certain type of equipment for a certain type of boss. In Mardek, it’s your own choice.
> -It still a storyline isn’t it?
I would prefer a good one over “any” storyline.
> -1. Use food. 2. Use inn. 3. Lv. Up. 4. Battle and regenerate
They are giving me regeneration while walking, so obviously they don’t necessarily want me to use food or return to the inn. If they did, don’t give me regeneration (like in Mardek).
> It’s focus is on being fun to play, not on telling a story.
Except I didn’t find it to be fun.
> This was a blatant and offensive dig at feminism and women in general.
Did you even read the jokes in EBF 3?
> Mardek wasn’t exactly Shakespeare either.
Compared to which game? It has one of the most extensive stories.

> 2. Even if you do cancel out every single blue foe, there is a great chance that you will not be able to defeat the next boss they through at you, causing you to go back and battle random monsters.
‘Cause you flee from all battles, and then complain that the bosses are too hard with your level 15 party.
> If you didn’t notice, the last boss in Mardek 2 (Moric/Social Fox) has a spell that casts multiple status effects on your entire party at once,
What’s that [PROFANITY]in’ attack???
> and uses zombify on anyone he’s able to kill —and with his attack he’s able to one or two hit kill most anyone in your party.
Where’s the [PROFANITY]in’ Geojacket and Bonestones?
> That makes grinding for resistance skills vital to completing the game, and it’s a vastly tedious process.
Status-curing items are abundant. And you would only need to train Vim in 1 character (and my char just mastered it unintentionally), equip the Bonestones in 2 other chars, and gives the Geojacket to the other one.
> Items only clear one effect at a time.
So where’s the bleedin’ Remedy?
> How do you propose beating Moric without those status resistances?
I defeated him while Mardek, Deugan and Vehrn didn’t even have Vim.
> The sidequests are just that, side quests.
Most of them are more similar to trade missions. Few of them (for example, the quests that require you to find Speakers, Batteries, Silver Shields,…) are really quests.

I’m with Chimto and Dark here on Moric/SF… you can master 1-2 defensive status effects and equip an extra one with an item (say Bonestone for the zombie), then you’re pretty much covered.
If not, remedy is still there. The only annoying thing about him was his Sunder, those hurt without earth defense… and sometimes, I just let him so he revives and zombifies my party member and then I cure him/her.

Grahh, why did you have to compare MARDEK with, of all things, EBF3? Why couldn’t you just compare with Runescape? Or Club Penguin? Anyway…
MARDEK has a somewhat structured story. There’s actually a much larger plot underneath which has the potential to go through seven or eight games allegedly, although I do wish it’s less “the magi are killing themselves per game and rohoph’s acting weird”. Each character also provides some interesting input throughout the game. EBF however doesn’t _really_ have that detailed of a plot.
MARDEK is full of lulness. EBF has boobies and tentacles. I’d say they’re equal there.
One thing I found somewhat annoying with MARDEK is these random encounters. Sure, it’s a solid idea but you have no idea when they’ll happen, how powerful the monsters are and near the end-game I found myself skipping all the battles because it got so boring. At least EBF has monsters in which you have an idea of their power (although sometimes deceiving) and the knowledge that some uberly powerful monster won’t pop up from behind you and kill you in two or three turns.
When you get to combat however, both are pretty intricate and the variety of spells everyone has are sweet. Balancing is good; there’s no unbelievably powerful monster that has absolutely no weaknesses and can barely be killed, and the ones that come close to that are the ones you can actually see. The stats play a pretty large role in determining whether you win or lose, but as others pointed out, I don’t get this ‘speed’ thing in EBF which makes you start first.
Items are also vast and have many different effects, although I must say MARDEK beats EBF with its crafting and status effects and whatnot. And EBF also has no-penalty flee…that’s kinda makes the game easy, doesn’t it?
Quests in both games really don’t seem as a stand-out to me. In EBF there are 30 of ‘em, and they’re quick and painless to complete, but it’s always “get these and deliver them to this guy” and doesn’t really seem fun to me. In MARDEK it seems as though there’s a fewer amount, and you practically go everywhere to complete a certain quest, but they’re much more drawn out and there’s some sense of accomplishment when you get your great reward (that really sounded gay).
Both games have an exploration sense to them, but MARDEK definitely beats EBF, since it’s a much larger game. I wanted to actually search the entire place in every ‘room’ and collect every treasure before moving on. The extra bosses and arena challenges are well worth the challenge, since you can carry over your rewards to the next game and give yourself a sweet advantage – that is, unless a new engine is made…Dreamstones are rather troublesome to find, but that didn’t put me off, and the reward you get provides an insight and makes you wait in fear for what happens in the next game. Damn you, Pseudolonewolf.
EBF, though much shallower, does pretty well with what it’s got, with secret rooms and hidden treasures I would always try to find (yes, I’m a completionist). The detail the guy put into the graphics are also mindblowing (but seems really too cute and cheesy, like the rest of the game), though I’m not saying MARDEK didn’t do well since what was done with the pixel environment and battle scenes was also fantastic.
I don’t know what I missed and I don’t know if I can be bothered to compare these even more but I’m gonna stop. Though both are unique in their own ways, and I enjoyed spending my time on both, MARDEK is that little more amazing then EBF. I’ll definitely want to wait for MARDEK 4 more than EBF 4.

> *Originally posted by **[Darkruler2005](/forums/3/topics/112021?page=6#posts-2564915):***
> > What do you mean “even if you do”? Of course you won’t be strong enough if you don’t ever fight monsters, that’s kind of ridiculous to assume you will be. I know EBF 3 gives you massive experience for beating even one monster so that they can wrap up the story really quick, but Mardek likes to actually make you fight all types of monsters in the game.
>
> And yet you and others were attempting to claim that grinding in Mardek was unnecessary. You just contradicted yourself.

> And yet you and others were attempting to claim that grinding in Mardek was unnecessary. You just contradicted yourself.
The new definition for “grinding” is now “fighting monsters at all”. In that case, you’ve effectively called every single game which includes monsters a grinding game. Good job.
To be mildly serious, I hope you weren’t actually expecting to get through the entire game beating only bosses and opening treasure chests? No. In this game, you get to fight some monsters for experience, then take on the bosses. How much of them you beat is up to you. However, if you simply go through the story, finishing quests without repeating any areas, you cannot call that grinding. You are simply battling what’s coming for you. If you _skip_ all of them, then it is only natural to expect every bit of a boss is going to beat you back into the stone age. Again, I know people wanting easy games really love it you gain 20 billion levels for beating the first enemy, but in Mardek you can just finish all quests without repeating any areas and still beat the bosses.
I repeat, this is _not_ grinding.

Darkruler:
Which is it? First you say oh no, all those random battles are unnecessary, you can just skip them, and now you’re admitting that they’re necessary after all. My complaint was that the random battles were excessive and made progressing anywhere slow and tedious, and you insisted that wasn’t a problem because you could just skip them —except, oops, turns out you can’t. Thank you for making my point for me.
Random battles, especially when they’re quite frequent, have been a pet peeve of players in the RPG genre for literally decades now. EBF eliminates random battles entirely and enables you to progress sufficiently with only a handful of battles per area —and allows you to choose when and where and even whom you fight. Mardek, on the other hand, spams the hell out of you with random battles and is stingy enough with the experience and advancement points to make damned sure you have to do them all and then some. Again, hello grinding up AP points for skills.
Having to shop and swap equipment and manage a large inventory of mostly useless crap is also a longtime peeve of RPG players. EBF3 has a single set of equipment that each has various advantages and disadvantages, allowing you to customize your gear to your play style and the enemies you’ll face. As you progress, you can upgrade that equipment to be more effective without having to swap it out for better, or hassle with outdated equipment. Not only that, but it even automatically organizes your inventory for you, categorizing everything by what it is and how it’s used and even puts it in order for you. It also allows all characters to work from the same item pool. Mardek? Surprise, surprise, nowhere near so convenient or hassle-free. Not only do you have equipment that becomes outdated, necessitating dumping it off at shops to get it off your hands, it makes you keep that useless crap for longer than otherwise necessary just to get skills out of it. And to top it all off, it not only doesn’t organize your inventory for you but actually makes you manage FOUR SEPARATE inventories, one per character, just to make sure everyone has usable items in battle. Again, one game makes your experience smooth and free of hassles, the other is clunky and makes you expend time and effort doing annoying and repetitive tasks instead of enjoying the game.
These things may not matter to you, but to me they’re the difference between a well designed and enjoyable game and a clunky, annoying pain in the ass. I don’t care how good the story is (and honestly, Mardk’s story isn’t great) if it’s so annoying and tedious to get through it that I quit from frustration.
Mardek needs to clear up some serious flaws before it can claim even to be good, let alone great.